


A Mild Application of Physics

by takethembystorm



Series: Tea Break [14]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Basically, Gen, including the tendency to hiberate in the cold, like chat has cat characteristics, subscribing to the general fan theory here, that ladybug has certain ladybug (insect) characteristics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 13:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8104471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethembystorm/pseuds/takethembystorm
Summary: Ladybug can't handle the cold very well.  Luckily for her, Chat knows ways of getting around that.





	

"You know," Chat says to Ladybug, keeping his tone light as he pokes his head above their cover, searching for the supervillain that had driven them into this enormous freezer of a warehouse, "I liked 'Frozen', too, but this is taking it a bit far."

He glances back over his shoulder, dislodging a small snowdrift with his chin as he does. "Ladybug?"

Ladybug sits with her back to the metal shelving, hugging her knees to herself and shuddering violently. Chat frowns as the small cone of snow that has formed atop her head is dislodged by her shivering and cascades down her legs; the magic that makes up the suits make them nearly invulnerable to pretty much any physical damage, up to and including temperature extremes. She shouldn't be affected this badly. Hell, she shouldn’t be affected at all.

“Uh, Ladybug?” Chat tries again.

“B-B-Buzz off,” Ladybug mumbles, curling in tighter on herself, “u-unless you’re g-going to f-f-find s-something to warm me up.”

“Uh, what?”

Ladybug sighs out a misty cloud of vapor. “L-Look,” she says with sing-song patience, “you act like a cat, r-r-right?”

“Uh, yes? On occasion.”

“W-Well,” Ladybug continues in the same tone, “I a-act like a la-lad-ladybug. Which m-means that I freaking _hate_ the c-c-cold.”

“Ah.”

“Which a-also means,” Ladybug says, “that we need to either g-g-get out of here or beat h-him before I go into hi-hibernation.”

Chat swears softly under his breath. “He froze the doors and windows over before he started refrigerating this place,” he says. “Would body heat work?”

Ladybug flushes, her frost-white skin warming a couple shades. “C-Couldn’t hurt to try,” she says.

Chat shuffles over and hauls Ladybug into his lap, enveloping her in what feels like a blast furnace as her back meets his chest. They sit like that as Chat listens for any approaching footsteps.

“I-It’s not working,” Ladybug mutters after a minute. “Still g-getting sleepy.”

Chat purses his lips, glancing down at Ladybug, then at the ring adorning his right hand. He sighs and stands, depositing Ladybug on the warehouse floor; her cold-slowed reflexes leave her sprawling.

“W-What are you—“

“Moment,” he says, hauling boxes down from the higher shelves as quickly and quietly as he can, setting them in a ring around Ladybug’s curled-up form. She protests weakly.

“Look,” he explains, “remember your chemistry? Remember what happens when you break chemical bonds?”

Her eyes widen a beat later in realization.

“Cataclysm,” he mutters under his breath.

“And as it just so happens,” he says to Ladybug, “I have the perfect thing for smashing anything and everything to pieces.”

“And hopefully nothing will explode,” he adds as he taps the nearest box with a finger.

The boxes start to disintegrate with a hiss and a sudden burning light as bright as a bolt of lightning. Chat steps back as the destruction spreads slowly around the ring, boxes flaring with sudden acetylene heat as they’re reduced to their component molecules. The snow and ice on the floor vaporize into a sheet of mist as the heat touches them.

A roar makes him whip around.

“Warmth?” the villain-of-the-week shouts, pointing an accusatory finger at them, “in _my_ domain?”

“Balls,” Chat swears as Cataclysm winks out around his hand.

“Uh, Chat?” Ladybug says as she makes her way to wobbly feet and steps up next to him. He glances behind him.

The magic of their suits makes them invulnerable to physical harm, up to and including temperature extremes; in other words, they can bathe comfortably in molten iron if they wanted to. The heat from the boxes, as it turns out, is intense enough to melt steel at a dozen paces. This it has done.

The heat-softened steel shelving, laden with wooden pallets and cardboard boxes, collapses onto the still-glowing ring of boxes and spontaneously combusts with a hiss of vaporizing water and a _fwoosh_. The glow stutters for a second, then grows furiously brighter as Cataclysm’s effects spread to fresh fuel.

“ _Balls,_ ” Chat swears again.


End file.
